A few things missing...
I noticed a few statistics that The Indpedendent failed to include on its front page yesterday:
- While constituting 4% of the population, the US is responsible for 22% of the UN's operating budget and 27% of its peacekeeping budget
- American taxpayers provide more funds to the UN than any other nation, and more than China, India, and Japan combined, which together constitute 39% of the world's population
- US taxpayers fund 57% of the UN's World Food Program budget, more than all other taxpayers on the face of the earth, and in doing so help to feed 104 million people in 81 nations
- Privately, Americans are profoundly generous:
- US foundations provide $1.5 billion in foreign charity per year;
- US businesses provide $2.8 billion in foreign charity per year;
- US religious organizations provide $3.4 billion in foreign charity per year;
- US universities provide $1.3 billion in in scholarships to foreigners every year;
- US NGOs provide $6.6 billion per year in grants, goods, and volunteers;
- In 2000 alone the US economy created $1.8 billion in funds that were eventually remitted by immigrants and foreign nationals from the US to foreign countries
- In the months following the Asian tsunami in December of last year, private American giving accounted for $1.48 billion in tsunami aid, in addition to the $850 million ponied up by US taxpayers
- Amerian workers are among the most productive in the world, ranking 2nd in GDP per capita
- Total US GDP in 2003 was $10.95 trillion, accounting for more than 30% of the world's GDP, more than twice that of the next closest nation, and more than that of the UK, Germany, France, and Italy combined.
- Finally, there are 9,387 Americans buried in a 172.5 acre patch of land in Normandy, France, accounting for 2.3% of the 407,000 Americans who gave their lives over a 3 year period defending Europeans and Asians from tyranny on their own soil, not in America.
Just thought I would mention it.
15 Comments:
In Internet speak. <3 this site.
No-one in their right mind would believe that the people of the USA
were anything but generous.
Rod the Brit
Andy,
That's a fair enough point. Would that the British left was equally clear-headed about where and willing to defend those in whom their best interests lay. Instead they attack and demonize them.
SC
Writing to the Independent is a waste of a good tree. Eff 'em all. The big penny that won't drop until w-a-a-y too late is that europe needs the US far more than the US needs europe...
Oh well, there is a payoff: lots of time for retaliatory schadenfreude, sound investments at fire-sale prices and the chance to put the boot in for a hard kick or three on the way down. Chateaux in the Loire and the odd Bavarian schloss will be going cheap, very cheap, quite soon. No trouble finding help either. OTOH, who wants to live in a stagnant backwater with whiny neighbors who smell bad...
The independent is not all of the British Left.
Andy
To be strictly accurate Germany didn't unilaterally declare war. Britain and France declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, America did so following the attack by Japan.
It is also not generally appreciated that the US was not in a position to declare war on anyone in 1939. At that time the US Army was a relatively small and ill equipped formation suitable for little more than domestic peacekeeping and border policing. Furthermore, the Army Air Force (the USAF was a later institution) was still in the process of changing over from biplanes. It is easy to forget that America's only possible threats were more than 3 thousand miles from her shores. An unthinkable distance at the time. Pre-war administrations had presumed that a powerful Navy was all that was required to deter aggressors and like most other governments they failed to forsee the rapid development of shipboard aviation.
Some great stats.
I have to agree that Americans are, historically, an incredibly generous bunch. There will always be those who knock her simply because of envy and fear. Nations, like businesses, need competition upon which they can judge their own performance. The lack of a suitable superpower to act as a balance to US economic and political dominance will always leave people a little nervous - no matter how (un)justified.
I'm sure no matter how much The Independant etc knock the US, deep down there is always a grudging respect.
C'est la vie - as they say in one of those Old European nations.
And I have to agree that today's europeans are, collectively and with pitifully few exceptions, an incredibly pathetic bunch -- about to confront reality after decades of denial and quite unable to cope. Also, at the risk of appearing a trifle brusque, who cares about respect, qualified or not, deep, shallow or in between? Better to be feared than loved.
As for saving europe's ass again, in a word, NO. No more help of any kind, especially military, and definitely no more polite assent over the camomile tea and cucumber sandwiches to the sclerotic 'idea' of the dopey 'european project' or any of the horses it rides on.
To add a little context to Viscount Scott's great stats: Twice is enough to spill blood and waste treasure on this craven continent, and now is the time to cut the bastards loose. Not hard to come up with a dozen recipes. How about... Repatriate our dead in a media event that dwarfs all Olympic ceremonies and papal funerals combined. ('Free at last from the foul soil of modern France"). Toss in a trade war focused on everything to do with Frogs and the Fatherland, synched with a blitz to destroy the usual Brit media suspects and tired fellow-travelers. Then move the Chicago air show to Paris, uninvited...
Oh man, I deserve another one.
" about as amusingly far from reality as one can get"
Oh, that's right - Theo Van Gogh was awake when his throat was slit, wasn't he?
John B -- No, I'll leave racism to you. Try the following: demographics in a death spiral; the stupefying inefficiency of a bloated public sector (near 50% of GDP); a looming pension crisis that will dwarf any financial crisis Britain has seen in decades; lying low-wattage elites afraid of with their own population... etcetera, it's a long list but you get the drift. UK and US are not in the same oily boat and never will be. Oh, and you can add dwindling N Sea supplies to the list.
Somehow, I'll bet you prefer denial.
"tired & exitable"
Apart from being inflammatory your attitude also seems to be somewhat naïve.
Every nation on earth (or at least us richer ones) are all in the same "oily boat". A financial disaster in one country will have consequences around the globe.
Judging an entire content "an incredibly pathetic bunch" is quite an ironic comment to make on a blog about Anti-Americanism in the UK don’t you think?
"It is better to be feared then respected" is perhaps the biggest fault I find with your post. Fear leads to hate (as yoda would say) and perhaps much of what is wrong with the world. Fear of Israel and its US backers incites terrists to action and fear to of the terrorists leads to further repression. A bitter circle that can only have negative consequences.
"Life is about respect"
- A Muslim man I meet in the street
I end this comment with a link to http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/presidents/george-w-bush/ a good commentary on George W Bush a favourite target of us "pathetic" Europeans. If we all study the facts before opening our mouths we would get on with each other.
Oh dear, Anon, what a load of tired old boilerplate. Financial "disasters" around the globe happen all the time, almost never reported adequately by navel-gazing european media.
Actually, a massive one, possibly a genuine epic, may be brewing right now in the financial markets, but it's got nothing to do with oil.
Sadly from your point of view, the crises always pass and we continue to go forward, but never because of pieties from the "global community" or happy-clappy platitudes about the One-ness Of It All.
The oil "crisis" is a figment of a leftoid wet-dream, again -- planet and human race are not doomed or even in jeopardy -- but this time around the gullible masses of europe are far less likely to buy into the standard anti-American cant. The planet has lots of oil left, and alternate fuel supplies -- cleaner, better, renewable, immune to supply interruption -- are on the way, not because of NGO waffle from cheap poseurs such as yourself, but because the mightiest fortune in the history of the planet is up for grabs and we will all benefit (Africa especially). The winners will not be european.
Europe is in permanent decline and, very likely, within a few years -- less than ten -- of violent upheavel. As always, it'll come as a total surprise to you and your kind, and you will blame everyone except yourselves. And yes, that is pathetic.
Yoda is fictional. You don't do reality well, do you? I note your values seem to be based on the words of passing strangers. Try this:
"Life is about better living through superior firepower."
- My American Wife
I hear that we are about to finish paying of the UK's war debts to the USA see http://chrisworth.com/2005/05/uks-debt-to-usa-getting-there.html
US national debt didnt get a mention..80% of GDP. China/Japan props up your economy right now. EU GDP is 25% of the world. Brits (60m of us) gave 1 billon dollars to the Tsunami and you only gave 1.48? nothing to shout about really ;) Oh and for YEARS the US didnt pay its UN fees AT ALL and the Senate wants to stop paying it AGAIN.
Generous my ass
tired&exitable, all your service jobs >>> China, India in the next 20 years.
And you owe us $13 trillion. Us being the world. Pay up or else.
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